Like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie: Cambridge pensioner Ron Wells suffers gashed head after bird attacks him

A shocked pensioner suffered a gashed head when a large bird swooped on him in a Hitchcock-style attack.

Ex-builder Ron Wells said the black bird, which he thought might be a jackdaw, came at him out of the sky four times “at alarming speed” – and cut through his scalp, either with its beak or claws.

The bizarre incident happened as the 81-year-old was making his way back to his home in Cherry Hinton after a visit to a nearby shop.

He said: “It was rather scary, because of the speed it came at me.

“I was just walking back from the shops and as I turned into Fisher’s Lane, all of a sudden, it swooped down on me, four times in all, and on one of the dives it made contact with my head. I’m not sure whether it was a claw or a beak, but my head was bleeding.

“When I looked up I couldn’t see where it had gone, but there were a flock of other birds like it swooping about in the sky.

“When I got home and sat down, I had a headache for about four hours afterwards.

“Afterwards I was a bit shaken up and couldn’t get about for a couple of days, but it is very much better now.”

David Hart, a friend of Mr Wells, said: “I’m a bit of an amateur ornithologist and Ron told me what happened. I joked about it with him, saying that in view of his age it might have been a vulture, or maybe a bird mistaking his white hair for nesting material – but it sounds just like something out of that Alfred Hitchcock film, The Birds.”

Mr Wells said the incident was witnessed by a man on the other side of the street, who seemed “very surprised”, but there was no-one else to come to his assistance.

He said: “The only reason I can think of for it attacking me was that it might have had fledglings nesting, and that it was worried about them. But I was on a pavement, and there weren’t any trees nearby.”

Nik Shelton, a spokesman for the Sandy-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said it was possible the bird had been trying to protect its young from a perceived threat.

He said: “It’s rare, but we do get reports of one or two incidents like this about this time of year when there are young birds about.

“The parent birds believe their young might possibly be in danger, so they come down to persuade people to go away.”